Alien: Covenant might not star Noomi Rapace

While Michael Fassbender’s return as android David has been confirmed since day one, the question of whether or not Noomi Rapace’s Dr Elizabeth Shaw would be back for Alien: Covenant has remained weirdly up in the air.

Now, according to The Daily Mail (via Den Of Geek), she won’t be making a return. He said “no” to that question, and “We’re still casting the main roles.”

Shaw was noticeably absent from the official plot synopsis but she was then confirmed, alongside Inherent Vice and Fantastic Beasts‘ Katherine Waterston (who’ll be playing a new character).

“Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.”

Now, as Den Of Geek notes, Rapace responded to a question about the Alien prequel by saying “I have no comment on that yet…” so it’s possible that it’s being negotiated, or that she might pop up in some kind of cameo or non-main-role. Given that Scott seems pretty up for giving out teasers of information (that hard R-rating, which xenomorphs will pop up), it’s interesting that this seems have to been so murky.

Rapace has two sci-fi movies in post-production: Steven Shainberg’s Rupture (in which she plays a single mother trying to break free from a mysterious organisation) and Tommy Wirkola’s What Happened To Monday? (in which she plays septuplets). Alien: Covenant is looking to shoot in the spring in Australia.